"Face your fears and then do something." Margaret Bourke-White would always remember this phrase, spoken so many times by her mother, whenever she was confronted by a fearful situation. It helped her overcome her timidity, and she became a woman admired for her courage in her superb work as a photographer and in her later struggles against crippling illness.

Margaret's interest in cameras began when she was studying at Cornell University. Before she knew it, her primary interest in herpetology gave way to complete dedication to photography. She photographed everything she could, and her determination and incredible abilities with the camera eventually led Henry B. Luce of Time magazine to summon her and offer her a job with his new magazine, Fortune. This important opportunity led to Margaret's lifelong affiliation with Life.

There was very little that Margaret Bourke-White did not photograph in her lifetime, lying on a high, dusty catwalk to capture the pouring of molten steel, being shot at by the guard of a Southern chain gang and taking pictures as bombs fell around her in Moscow. She was one of the few photographers to capture both Stalin and Gandhi on film. She flew on World War II bombing missions, photographed German concentration camps and explored the diamond mines of South Africa with her cameras. Whatever her subject, she brought to it a unique blend of enthusiasm, sensitivity and skill. When her strenuous pace was suddenly halted by the dreaded and little-known Parkinson's disease, she faced her illness with typical courage and did much to bring the disease out into the open.

Margaret Bourke-White died in 1971, but she left behind a superb visual history of her times. The remarkable story of an amazing woman.

From the dust jacket